Both Brahms's Violin Concerto in D major, with its energetic finale in the ‘Hungarian’ style, and Clara Schumann's Romances, op. 22, were dedicated to the prominent Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, a long-time close friend of Brahms's whose advice the composer actively solicited (but did not always heed) as he crafted the concerto. Lisa Batiashvili plays here on Joachim's own 1715 Stradivarius, on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. Although this album thus pays tribute to Joachim in some respects, it is interesting that the usual performance choice of Joachim's cadenza for the concerto is passed over here in favour of the more rarely heard Busoni cadenza (BV B 5), composed in 1913. This cadenza draws in turn on both of the main themes of the concerto's initial movement and is distinctive in its incorporation of timpani rolls and in the early re-entry of the ensemble strings. (Brahms did not write a cadenza for the work himself. Cadenzas have been supplied by a number of musicians over the years; sixteen of these cadenzas, including ones by Kreisler and Heifetz among others, may be heard on Ruggiero Ricci's recording of the concerto.)Footnote ¹ Even apart from the considerable merits of the interpretations on the present disc, a number of remarkable features help to distinguish this recording and emphasize the connections of both works to Joachim. This disc is thus a unique and valuable addition to the already sizable catalogue of important recordings of the concerto.

The published version of the work, heard on this recording, was the result of a number of revisions. Brahms began composing the D major Concerto at the resort of Pörtschach in the summer of 1878, a year after completing his second symphony there. (The first movement of the symphony is often compared to that of the concerto, with which it shares its main key and a certain idyllic character.) The concerto was originally conceived as a four-movement work, in the manner of a symphony, but Brahms soon replaced the slow movement and scherzo with the current Adagio. After collaborating with Joachim for several months over changes (particularly ones intended to make the writing more idiomatic for the solo instrument), the violinist premiered the work in Leipzig, at the Gewandhaus, on New Year's Day in 1879 under the composer's baton; Joachim performed it shortly thereafter in Pest, Vienna, London and Amsterdam. For several months following the premiere, the two musicians continued to confer on minor alterations to the solo part before Brahms finally sent the work to his publisher.

Clara Schumann's Romances for Violin and Piano, op. 22, were composed in the summer of 1853, shortly before the Schumanns’ first meeting with their soon-to-be protégé, the young Brahms. These pieces are among the handful of works that Clara wrote preceding the death of her husband in 1856, after which she virtually stopped composing to focus on performing and on promoting his works and those of Brahms. While on tour, she performed these three short Romances with Joachim. The pairing of the concerto with the Romances is an unusual feature of this disc, but the inclusion of the latter is welcome; recordings of the Romances are regrettably few, and the intimacy and brevity of these works contrast nicely with the bravado of the concerto, giving these short pieces the feel of an ‘encore’.

The performers here are of the highest calibre. This is the second Deutsche Grammophon release for acclaimed Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili, who has received international attention since placing second in the Sibelius Violin Competition in 1995, at age sixteen. Her first album with Deutsche Grammophon, featuring works of Shostakovich, Kancheli, Rachmaninov and Pärt, and recorded with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and pianist Helene Grimaud, was released in 2011 and won Batiashvili an Echo Klassik award. Thielemann, Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden as of the 2012–13 season (during which Batiashvili was in residence and touring with the ensemble), is known for his interpretations of German Romantic repertory; here, he leads the historic Staatskappelle in the Brahms work, recorded at Dresden's Lukaskirche. For the Schumann Romances, recorded in studio, Batiashvili is joined by the widely celebrated young German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott, who has made a number of recordings of nineteenth-century repertory (including works of Liszt, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven) for Deutsche Grammophon.

The performances on this new release are very enjoyable, and Batiashvili's playing is exquisite. The violin has been amplified perhaps a bit heavily, and the sound of the orchestra is not as crisp as it might be due to the church acoustic, but the recording is gorgeous nonetheless. Joachim's Stradivarius truly sings in Batiashvili's hands, eliciting a rich, warm, full tone. Her playing in the concerto is wonderfully expressive, with tremendous sensitivity in the shading and colouring of her lines, a very wide dynamic spectrum and a lively momentum. Although Brahms was not given to empty, ostentatious, virtuosic display, he nonetheless presents the soloist with substantial technical challenges in this work, including double and triple stops, wide leaps, registral shifts and rapid passagework; the scale of the piece, whose first movement alone lasts about 22 minutes in most recordings, requires extraordinary stamina from the violinist. Batiashvili's performance is fluid and facile even in the most technically challenging of passages, and her intonation is impeccable. Thielemann's tempos are fairly tight and controlled and generally move along well (the first movement of the Brahms, with Busoni's cadenza, clocks in at 21:09, the Andante at 8:49, and the finale at 7:56). The communication between conductor and soloist is strong, and, especially during solo passages, Batiashvili allows the music to ‘breathe’, lending time an expressive but always appropriate and tasteful degree of malleability, emphasizing notes of particular dramatic significance by delaying their arrival ever so slightly or by lingering on them for just an instant longer than necessary (for example, in the first movement of the concerto, immediately following the initial solo entrance [third beat of bar 91], as well as on the note that pivots from ascending to descending passagework at the downbeat of bar 128 and at the melodic peaks in bars 131–133). The playing of Batiashvili and Ott in the Romances is beautiful as well: warm and expressive, with a strong sense of collaboration between the two players. This manifests itself in their sensitive rhythmic and dynamic coordination and in the balanced interplay between violin and piano, which emerge as true partners from the outset, with their dialogue at the opening of the First Romance. Ott holds her own throughout, and when she adopts the primary melodic role, as in a central passage of the B section in the Third Romance, Batiashvili slips gracefully into the persona of unobtrusive accompanist.

Although the recording history of the Brahms concerto is already long and illustrious (and indeed this release follows closely on that of yet another well-received recording of the work, by Renaud Capuçon), this disc is a most welcome addition.Footnote ² The beautiful interpretation, the historical significance of the solo instrument, the atypical choice of cadenza and the addition of the Clara Schumann pieces combine to make this recording a valuable and distinctive contribution that listeners will continue to enjoy in years to come.